The Lost Incredible
by BookNextDoor
Summary: "A family of supers," Jack mused. "How pathetic." 14 years have passed since Jack Jack was kidnapped. With no recollection of his biological family, he lives out his days training as a sidekick and perfecting his villainous identity under the supervision of Syndrome. When a battle breaks out in Metroville, Jack/Jack-Jack finds himself entangled in a series of shocking revelations.
1. Chapter 1

The Lost Incredible

 **Chapter 1: The Enemy**

Context: There's a time skip of about 14 years. Jack Jack is 15. He's been raised by Syndrome his entire life and has no idea that he is the biological son of Helen and Bob.

A newspaper clipping once slipped out of Uncle Syndrome's folder. The boy could make out the four smiling faces staring back at him. Four figures stood in front of a defeated villain, the mayor flanking their right. A family of supers, Jack mused. How pathetic. A tall, lithe blonde boy was grinning cheek to cheek next to his sister. She looked nothing like what he assumed to be her brother, her dark hair was tied up in a ponytail. And although she was nowhere near as enthusiastic, her challenging gaze towards the camera looked like it never lost a battle. The last two main figures were much older, their hair was mostly gray. His eyes lingered on the man gazing fiercely at the woman standing next to him. A laugh was caught on her lips. Though they weren't wearing the red and black uniforms, it was clear that these two masked figures were the parents of the two well-established sibling hero team.

"What's this?" Uncle S frowned, ripping it out of his hands. "Pah! The Incredibles," he sneered. "Nothing but a lousy bunch thinking they're better than everyone else. A nasty crowd to hang around, if you ask me."

"You sound like you've met them before," the boy inquired, sneaking one more glance at the family. A faint wistful feeling gnawed at him, as if something as juvenile as family was something that he cared about. Uncle S was his only family, the only person who gave a damn when he was abandoned by his biological parents.

Uncle S tossed the scrap into the flames before giving him a condescending smirk. "Years ago, my boy. It was quite the battle, one I'll never forget. To think they're still defending Metroville after 14 years. Happiest day of my life was when Mr. Incredible retired. Disgusting! They think they're gods. Everyone else is just a brainwashed ant ready to get stomped on."

Their smiling faces disgusted him. Why did they get to reap all the praise? Why did they get to be happy all the time?

What suffering or failure could they possibly know? What abandonment? They won the genetic lottery for eternal glory, and it wasn't fair that he and Uncle S had to spend theirs living in a shit-hole base in the mountains. It wasn't fair that they had a perfect family, that they could go home together at the end of the day.

He watched the flames gradually eat away at the photograph, burning their existence out of his eyes.

"I want to continue where we left off for training," he said blankly. "And this time, I don't want the gauntlets on."


	2. Chapter 2

_**The Lost Incredible**_

\- Chapter 2 -

Author note: You guys requested and so here it is! I listened to Young & Menace by Fall out Boy while writing this. Kinda describes Jack Jack if you ask me. Enjoy & feel free to leave comments! What do you think will happen next?

Jack was thirteen when he first tried on the gauntlets.

They looked like the gauntlets from the medieval age, all glitz, and glory. He could just barely lift an arm, making them more of a hindrance than a safety precaution.

"These gauntlets," Jack sighed. "What're they for again?" They made a particular rattling noise when he gestured, like a un-oiled creak of a door.

"They're meant to keep you from killing me," Uncle S said cheerily as they made their way to the training room. What he said was nothing short of jarring, as this was the same man who liked to host dance parties when another hero kicked the bucket. He watched him punch in a series of symbols before the steel doors slid open to a white room with glaring fluorescent lights. As sterile as it looked, the sky roof offered a pleasant view of the robin blue sky before the steel latch closed over it.

"That's not very reassuring," Jack muttered before stepping into the facility.

"No, but it'll make it a heck lot easier managing those killer powers of yours."

"Oh yeah?" He scoffed. He was a genius, no one could deny him that. But stifling powers? Manipulating DNA? That was something Jack thought was too far out of Uncle S' capacity.

Uncle S gave him a toothy grin. "Let's just say you won't be combusting and disappearing as much anymore."

It was true that Jack had a habit of self-combusting into flames every now and then. There were mornings when we would wake up with his nose pressed against the ceiling. Instances in which he would accidentally fry his cereal. Transform into metal out of the blue. It was even more unusual that these powers _persisted_ , despite most powered kids losing most if not all but one of their abilities around puberty.

 _A monster,_ his head told him. _The freak your parents never wanted_.

As they entered the training facility, Jack could feel his heart slow back down to a comforting beat. He remembered spending hours in the room, watching himself bounce off the walls and blow up dummies for fun. No one could get hurt here, and no one could bother him.

"Remind me what I'm supposed to do again?" Jack yelled. Uncle S had slithered his way into the top part of the facility, a control room that could manipulate and control the settings from a safe distance. The jovial orange-haired villain spent his free time concocting all sorts of new target practices for Jack, whether they were flying omnidroids or actual villains. Since Uncle S' notorious victory in one of the recent showdowns in downtown Metroville, his popularity gained a significant amount of support from the villain community, pouring in funding and support worldwide. Even then, Uncle S insisted that Jack still wasn't ready to handle the "real deal."

Uncle S waved his fingers. "Oh ya know, the usual...kill the target, try not to get maimed, yadda yadda yadda." Jack snorted. The man was a child trapped in an adult body.

"Enjoy the show, kid," he spoke into the mic before reclining back in his seat with a martini.

"Screw you," Jack said, shuffling his body in the center. "Damn, these are pretty heav-WOAH!" Out of nowhere, a ball of fire made a swan dive towards him. Its searing flames were close enough to burn off his eyebrows had he not rolled away to the side in time.

"That could've killed me!" He yelped, glaring down at the gaping hole leftover from the impact. "MY SHOE'S ON MY FIRE."

" _Puh-lease_ , you've teleported to other dimensions without a clue as to how you got there. A big ball of fire should be the _least_ of your problems."

Yeah, the bickering happened on a daily. But he found himself thankful, no matter how eccentric Uncle S was. Not many could offer salvation to a monster.

"Is that all you got?" The shoe he had previously worn had now been discarded and flung into another direction.

He watched with uncertainty as Uncle S hit another button on the panel. What followed after was...nothing. There were no pellets flying at him. No trap door that suddenly opened up to water. Even so, he kept his stance, pivoting in all directions. Since dodging that blast of fire, he realized he hadn't even used his powers so far.

 _I see what you're playing at,_ he thought deviously. _I don't need my powers to win._

As if Uncle S could read his mind, he spoke into the mic once more. "Jackie boy, don't get too cocky. I hear you're quite the martial artist from some of my friends."

Jack shut him out. His attention was too wrapped up in the surroundings that when the floor began to hum, he knew he was in trouble. He could feel his hair rising. Literally. It smelled like the outside before the lightning and thunder would strike. His arm began to tingle, not out of anticipation, but out of the fact that he could not summon his teleportation ability. When he called to it, it was like pulling on a rope. One pull and that was all it took. Except for this time, when he pulled at it, they kept unraveling from his fingertips. Jack grabbed at it again, the thread dissipating like ashes. So _this_ was what the gauntlet could do. The gauntlet didn't stifle his powers, they completely wiped it.

 _Shit, shit, shit_ he thought. _Where to run?_ The training facility was a boxed off, indoor space. There were no vents visible to the eye and digging underground was also not an option.

"Clock's a tickin'," sang Uncle S from his cushy booth.

He grits his teeth. If he couldn't teleport, then maybe he levitating would keep him from getting fried to death. Closing his eyes to concentrate, he envisioned the thread again in his mind. This time, levitating was a purple thread. Why? No clue. That was how they felt. Combustion felt like a brown color. Shapeshifting was blood orange.

"I won't always be there to save you," he said ominously in the background.

 _Find the thread. Find it. Grab it._ Jack could see the thread in the distance, but the closer his fingers got to it, the blurrier it became. He tried finding the blood orange thread, in hopes of canceling out the volts of god knows how much that was about to shock him. _If I turn into water, it won't conduct._

Imagining himself as water was slightly difficult, as it didn't really have a form per se. He tried to imagine his torso as a fountain, his arms as jet streams of water.

Nothing. It was like hunger gnawing at his stomach even after a full dinner.

But before he could think of his next plan, the floor let out a thunderous clap of lightning.

The pain Jack felt was immeasurable. The last thing he could see before writhing to the ground was the sight of Uncle S disappearing from his line of vision.


	3. Chapter 3

_**The Lost Incredible**_

\- Chapter 3 -

 _ **Author note:**_ Bet you guys thought I abandoned this, huh? It's safe to say that I haven't touched this fic in a while, but due to the demand, I can finally update now that my time isn't consumed by school or work. I'm a little frustrated this wasn't written as well as I had hoped due to the time crunch, but I hope you'll be able to enjoy it, nonetheless. I promise Jack and the reunion within the near future. Thank you for the support and feel free to continue leaving your comments/thoughts/etc :-)

"Five minutes," Uncle said. "You were in the arena for _five minutes_. You'd be toast if it were the real deal."

"I don't see what the problem is," Jack snapped, gritting his teeth. He ducked his head under the kitchen faucet, letting the cool water trickle down his head. After getting electrocuted by his own uncle, it didn't make it any better to have his training footage being replayed.

"It's not like my powers will be muted, I won't hold back when it's the real deal." _Those damn gauntlets_ , he cursed. Had they not been on, he would have obliterated everything in his sight.

" _No_ ," Uncle corrected. "What you need to work on is your discipline. You won't stand a chance against them, not with that cocky attitude." The them he was referring to, that was what Jack was training for. To overthrow the hierarchy of heroes, particularly Ultraviolet and her younger brother, Velocity. With Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl retired for the past couple of years, their children had taken the limelight and continued their family legacy.

"It'll be different when it's real," he shot back, collapsing on one of the lounge chairs. Everything ached when he laid still. He was used to this, given the excruciating training regimes he had been undergoing everyday. Still, the pain was unbearable sometimes and he slept voraciously to recover.

Uncle scoffed. "Kid, you have no idea who you're dealing with. They will kill you, if you push them enough." The heroes from Ultraviolet and Velocity's parents generation were more lenient about capturing and subduing villains. The desperation and tension had steadily increased from both sides within the past decade. As technology steadily developed, criminals did not hesitate to use it to their whims, leaving the heroes to be more aggressive and less forgiving than their predecessors. He hated the way he called him _kid_. As if being sheltered away in some secluded mountainside was sheltering his innocence. He didn't ask for this life, but it was his and he was going to make something out of it.

"Is that not what you are?"

Jack sat up abruptly. "Of course not. Sidekicks live in the shadows of their masters. I don't plan on living under yours forever, Uncle."

"True," Uncle snickered, flashing the ever-so toothy grin that hardly changed since his youthful days as a prominent villain. "I suppose you're right. But Jackie boy, you act like I've never been in your shoes. Why, you're luckier than most sidekicks today."

"Right," Jack drawled. "Because working in the shadow of Mr. Incredible was great."

"Glory days. Those were different times. Mind you, I didn't exactly work with him. He was arrogant. Selfish. He let his ego blind him. I had to take matters into my own hands."

Jack snorted. "And how's that working for you?"

"Ungrateful! I didn't know I raised a brat. How many people can say they've trained their entire life for this? Mr. Incredible could never do that for me."

And so, even with the decades and years that had passed, it seemed Uncle S continued to feel conflicted between his hostility and admiration for the retired hero. The beacon of hope and all things good were The Incredibles family legacy. He was everything Uncle wanted to be as hopeful child. But much to his disdain, it was far better to work from the shadows than to bask in ignorant glory.

"It's not like I'm ungrateful, Uncle."

"But of course. I'd hate to see you become one of the elitist, pompous freaks."

If they were freaks, didn't that make him one as well? When he could melt steel with lasers from his eyes and combust upon will, how was that any different? Freak, hero, villain. It made no difference to him. Those heroes stole his future from him. They forced Uncle and the villain community to hide and cower in fear, forced them to do extraneous endeavors only to have their voices silenced by these so-called heroes.

"No," Jack softly murmured. "Heroes mean nothing to me."

"Amen," Uncle agreed. He finished off the last of the mimosa before tossing it to the robotic servant to take care of it. Another robot whizzed into the room with a suitcase and a freshly cleaned suit. His jet was ready, it chirped before whizzing back into the glass corridor that overlooked the island.

Jack sat up, mopping the last of the sweat with a towel. "Where're you headed?"

"Ferryville. The committee is holding an international press conference regarding the lack of villainous activity. I'm expected to return in a week or so, but you know how it is."

It was not often Uncle left the island to do tasks. As one of the board members of this secretive committee, he often found himself traveling to all corners of the world to do work in the shadows. Though retired, Jack would someday take over his duties. But for now, the fifteen year old boy was expected to train and train on the isolated but rich island. Jack had no interest in leaving the island considering how disgustingly glorified the city was for heroes. Since the superhero accord officially permitted hero work a decade or so, the city owed much of its long-lasting peace to the heroes who could work in the daylight without restrictions.

"Better brush up on those skills before I get back," Uncle chided. "And behave yourself, of course. No visitors, no blowing up volcanoes, et cetera. I won't be able to check in routinely but my numerous absences in the past shouldn't be too difficult for you to handle."

"Wouldn't dream of it Uncle. Enjoy the trip."

And with that, Uncle gave him one stern look again before stepping onto the chute that shot him towards the sky deck. Jack stared out the pristine glass windows and watched the jet zip off into the distance before it disappeared into a mass of clouds.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jack whistled, shoving his hands down his pockets before making his way to his room to sleep. "Wouldn't dream of it."


	4. Chapter 4

_**The Lost Incredible**_

Chapter 4

Song: "Life in Solitude" by Zack Hemsey

 _ **Author note:**_ I realize the story is moving pretty slowly (I know we ALL want to get to their meeting, I promise it will be soon) I'm really invested in elaborating on Jack-Jack's upbringing by Syndrome as I feel it is integral to his character and his development into his early teenage years. Hopefully this isn't too boring or slow for you all. Thank you for being patient and please leave reviews, drop a favorite/follow, or share with others because it lets me know there is interest in my updates for me to update more frequently. Enjoy!

A few years ago, while playing with action figures, a sickening crack echoed from one of the windows in the living room. It had turned out a common sparrow-not much bigger than a grapefruit-dived point-blank into the intimidating glass windows that surveyed rows upon rows of forestry from their exclusive abode.

Its broken body laid only a few inches from their balcony door, garnering the curiosity of Jack-Jack's interest. It was strange that the bird had suddenly stopped moving. Toys and cars stopped moving. Sometimes Stanley, the robot that tucked him into bed, shut down at times, frustrating Uncle when he had to make breakfast or do laundry as these tedious chores would have normally been done by his own creations. Once fixed with a few tweaks, they moved with ease again. So why wasn't the bird moving? Couldn't it be fixed? _Uncle could fix it_ , Jack thought. If he can fix Stanley and spaceships and things, it could fly again, couldn't it?

Perhaps there was hope, for the bird had not stilled completely. Its legs were still twitching, as if something invisible had been prodding it. "Uncle," Jack whispered excitedly. "It's still moving!" Faint speckles of blood dotted the sliding glass door. The sparrow continued to twitch erratically as Syndrome watched with bored disdain and the boy with enthusiasm. Jack-Jack scrambled up from his play area, running over to the kitchen table in order to tug on his Uncle's sleeve.

"God, you're weird," his Uncle chided, shooing him back to his toys. "The thing is dying and you're... excited." Even so, Syndrome could not find the proper words to say. What to say, then? He had stole the boy to with the sole intention of raising him as a sidekick. But little to his dismay, parenting had come full course now that the Parr family's youngest was seven and bursting with an abundance of questions.

Jack-Jack frowned. "What's dying?"

Syndrome sighed, for this was one of the few thousand questions Jack-Jack had asked him on a daily basis. Was he this annoying when he was a kid? He wasn't going to give the kid the answer he wanted. He wouldn't be able to comprehend it anyway, not in the way that Syndrome knew death. One by one, they all dropped like sparrows. Twitching, gasping. Begging. _Oh_ , the sounds those dying heroes made. Syndrome almost found it disappointing, the way the light disappeared from their eyes, as they drifted somewhere into the fabric of the beyond. For the slightest moment, he could taste their mortality.

The worms seemed to enjoy the gruel. At least, the worms burrowing into the corpses he had bothered to do a mass burial for. Shame, that they couldn't eat through the tough exteriors of the infamous suits created by Edna. Suits they would end up dying in. A secret buried under mounds of dirt. In fact, Mr. Incredible himself bumped into the skeleton of Gazerbeam no more than a few years ago, when Syndrome nearly annihilated him for good. But due to his error, the skeleton enabled him to trick the device he had sent to recover Mr. Incredibles' status.

Food for worms, heroes and sparrows. It was all the same to him.

"Dying," Syndrome began. "Dying is when you done all that you've need to do and it's time to say goodbye. Not all of us are lucky. Some of us don't get a goodbye, like the bird. Once our goodbyes are said, we leave."

The frown on Jack-Jack's face deepened at those words. "Don't birds deserve goodbyes too?"

They glanced back over to the bird. It had stopped twitching.

Jack-Jack shook his head, a single tear falling down his cheek. "Won't his family miss him?"

He scoffed at the underlying irony. Helen and Bob were ruthless. He had lost count of how many nights he had spent hiding, laying low in seedy motels and abandoned warehouses with a sobbing baby cradled in his arms. They put up missing posters, looked at security footage. Syndrome remembered a newspaper image, Helen with a dazed look in her eyes as she begged and begged for information. They would have ripped the world apart if they could, if they wanted. To the general public, they were merely an ordinary family who wanted their son to come home. To the heroes in hiding, they were desperate to find the orange haired villain who had stole their child from their own home.

He remembered how Mr. Incredible looked, never so defeated in his life. They spent nights and soon those nights turned into years, scouring the city and nearby regions in the hopes that their baby boy, Jack-Jack Parr, would return home to them. He didn't. And so they moved forward, continuing hero work and expanding their network. They grew old and grew tired, and eventually their energy gave out. Violet and her brother Dash took the family mantle, carrying on the legacy that would have been the 3 of the Parr children as opposed to 2.

But Syndrome was smart. Syndrome knew where to hide and where to find help. He knew how to build and how to create, a skill Mr. Incredible did not see potential in. This fueled him for a many good years, kindling the desire to shape Jack-Jack into the perfect weapon of mass destruction. Yet, the goodness inside him had not been crushed. Even with his alienation from the world, Jack-Jack felt things Syndrome did not understand. Arbitrary things that got in the way of much more important goals. Things like empathy and kindness and compassion.

Jack-Jack opened the balcony doors, letting the cool spring breeze flow in. Syndrome watched with curiosity as the boy picked up the broken bird, cradling it gently in his lanky arms. No, quelling was not the answer. He had to destroy the thing inside him that made him just like his pathetic father. It made him seethe with rage, thinking about that memory he repeated over and over again in is mind.

 _Go home, buddy._

"His family probably forgot about him," Syndrome said blankly, devoid of any sympathy. "Just like your family forgot about you." It wasn't entirely a lie.

Those words sent a shiver down Jack-Jack's back. His hands began to grow clammy. "Uncle, I don't understand." He did that annoying thing again, tugging on his sleeve.

"What's so hard to get? Your family didn't want you."

Jack-Jack's body began to shudder, his mouth quivering. "That's _mean_."

Syndrome kicked his toy figures aside. "The truth hurts, huh kid? Why do you think I spent all those years, hiding us? Telling you never to leave the island? You can't trust anybody, not in this world. If you do, well, you might just end up as broken as that bird."

Jack-Jack shuddered, beginning to wail at the lifelessness of its body. Syndrome gave him a begrudging look, one that bordered between pity and satisfaction. "You can fix me, can't you? Y-you fixed Stanley." Syndrome fixed things, made them better. Jack-Jack believed he could be cured, too. He believed that if he was fixed, he could be loved. He could be wanted, remembered. Such power and persona were conflicting. These abilities that came and went, they never seemed to listen. They were disobedient. Uncooperative. The boy would have wasted his potential had he been raised by their family, teaching him to restrain all the capacities that made him glorious, powers Syndrome would basked in as a child admiring heroes from afar. Jack-Jack was weak, and wanting a family distracted him from his real purpose: to destroy the heroes that preached peace and harmony yet slaughtered anyone who opposed them.

Another incentive to break him.

"Of course," Syndrome murmured softly, picking up the bird's broken form. He tossed the bird into the incinerator, watching it get swallowed up before it disappeared from his sight. "We'll fix you, and I promise you that we'll make the people responsible for what they did to your family."

They were all lies, but Jack-Jack's entire existence was built on a lie, one in which he believed that his parents were dead. And the heroes were the ones we caused it.

The boy nodded solemnly, and let his strange orange-haired Uncle lead him to the laboratory, leaving nothing but the sound of the wind whistling through the curtains of their living room.


End file.
